Fight The Future
by lilkawa
Summary: Arthur and Merlin somehow end up in the future
1. Chapter 1

_Merlin_ and _Robin Hood_ do not belong to me.

**Fight The Future**

"Where's Percival?" Elyan asked and then turned to take Arthur's arm. Arthur had been wounded in the fight when Morgana and Agravaine had taken over Camelot. Morgana's men had chased them into the woods and Elyan could hear the hooves of the horses, Morgana was coming after them. He handed the wounded king to Merlin and told them to go; he would stay and fight and give Merlin and Arthur a chance to make it to Ealdor.

Arthur turned and watched Camelot burn, he felt that he should do something about it but when Merlin told him that they best be on their way he had no choice but to follow his servant.

000

Arthur was standing in the middle of a crowd of people; most of whom were dirty and most in tears. 'Where was he?' he wondered, 'and what was going on?' He saw a crowd of people; most likely noblemen from their dress standing at the foot of the stairs and that was when he saw the four men who were to be hang. He looked around for Merlin but he couldn't see him in the crowd.

One of the noblemen were was handed a scroll and he began to read from it – apparently by order of King Richard the four peasants from Locksley were to be hanged for stealing. Arthur felt that perhaps the punishment didn't fit the crime but he was a stranger in a strange land.

A few minutes later Arthur was surprised to see that the very man who had read from the scroll was shooting arrows and freeing the prisoners. The sheriff ordered the man to be killed and as one of the soldiers aimed his arrow at him, Arthur couldn't stop himself, he run towards one of the soldiers grabbed a sword and hit the soldier with the arrows. In the ensuing pandemonium, Arthur joined the men and they rode off into the woods.

000

Merlin was in a room and as he watched an older man with short white hair entered the room.

"Now that was a complete mess, wasn't it Gisborne?" he asked his companion, a tall dark haired handsome man. "I guess this means you get to get Locksley Manor back."

"Yes," Gisborne smiled at his companion.

"I want their heads," the other man continued, "Robin of Locksley, the peasants…all of them including that stranger wearing the red cape with a crest; he may be from a family still loyal to King Richard. A spy most probably."

"Consider it done."

Merlin knew that the stranger the man was speaking of must be Arthur; he needed to find his friend. But first he needed to find this Robin of Locksley. He needed to find out where they were and how they had ended up there and then they needed to go back to Camelot and save the kingdom.

What do you think?


	2. Chapter 2

Marian saw the young man sneak out of the Sheriff's room and followed him. He was a stranger; and he looked lost.

"Can I help you?" she asked him, smiling.

Merlin turned and smiled at the beautiful young woman. "I think I'm lost," he told her.

"I'm Marian," she told him, "who are you?"

"My name's Merlin," he replied. "Where exactly are we?" he continued. "Is this Lot's kingdom?"

"You're in Nottingham," Marian replied. At his puzzled look, she added, "England."

"Right," Merlin replied, although he had no idea what that meant at all.

"I saw you sneaking out of the Sheriff's room," Marian told him, "you could be hung for that."

"Sheriff?"

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked him. "You seem kind of dazed."

"Actually I'm looking for a friend of mine," Merlin told her; he hoped she could be trusted. "He was wearing a red cape, over chain mail."

"I saw him," Marian told him, "he went with Robin."

"Where can I find them?"

"Who is your friend?" a voice asked, startling Marian and Merlin.

"Just a local boy. He's helping me carry some things for my father." Marian told Gisborne. She took Merlin's hand and led out of the castle.

000

"I don't like the look of that stranger," Little John said. "He could be a spy."

"He helped us at the castle," Robin pointed out. "That makes him fine to me."

"Still," Little John said, "look at his clothes. Who wears clothes like that?"

Will, Alan and the others were also looking at Arthur warily. "I'll talk to him," Much volunteered, "find out where's he's from." Robin and Much walked towards Arthur, he was standing by a tree looking around him.

"Thank you for your help back there," Robin told him, "I'm Robin and this is my friend Much."

"Arthur."

"So why did you help us back there?" Robin asked him. "It wasn't your fight."

"I couldn't just stand by and see people put to death," Arthur replied, "the punishment seemed too great for the crime that they had committed. And besides, I was just following your lead; you sentenced the men and then turned round and saved their lives."

"Well," Robin replied, "these are strange times England's going through."

"England?" Arthur asked, "Is that where we are?" He obviously wasn't in one of the five kingdoms, so where was he? And where was Merlin?

"Yes." Much replied.

"So I take it you're not from around here?" Robin asked Arthur. Arthur looked at the men wondering how much to trust them. But he needed their help, he was in a strange land and he needed to find Merlin and get back home before Morgana destroyed his kingdom. "No," he replied, in answer to the question. And then he added, "My name is Arthur Pendragon and I'm from Camelot."

Much and Robin looked at each other in shock. They both remembered the myth, the legend about King Arthur and the Knights of the roundtable and Camelot.

"Get out;" Much told Arthur, "next you'll be telling us that you're married to Guinevere and that Merlin is - ." Much got no further than that because Arthur had pulled out his sword and was holding it to Much's throat. "Who sent you?" he asked. "Was it Agravaine, Morgana? Who sent you?"

Robin and Will had their arrows aimed at Arthur's head while John, Alan and Peter had drawn their swords. "Put your sword down," Robin told Arthur, "let Much go, you're outnumbered." Arthur knew that he was outnumbered but he was also good with the sword and could take those men.

"Arthur, put down the sword."

000


	3. Chapter 3

When Arthur heard Merlin's voice he let go of Much. "Merlin, "he said, hugging him, "where have you been?" Merlin told Arthur about ending up in a castle and overhearing the Sheriff and Gisborne talking, and how he had run into Marianne.

"Merlin and Arthur?" Robin asked Marianne, pointing at them. "Are you serious?"

"You think they made up the names?" Marianne asked him.

"It's preposterous," Robin replied. "How could they travel from the past?"

"I don't know but here we have two strangers called Arthur and Merlin who say that they came from Camelot." Marianne told him.

"You're probably right, Arthur nearly killed Much for saying Guinevere's name and he asked if Morgana or Agravaine had sent us," Robin told her.

"Morgana? Agravaine?"

"I knew he was for real," Much told them. "We're in the presence of King Arthur and Merlin."

"What's the big deal?" Little John asked, "They're just a couple of boys."

Robin and Marianne were watching Arthur and Merlin talking. "I say we get to the bottom of this," Robin said.

000

"So you have magic," Arthur told Merlin, after Robin, Marianne, John, Alan and Will had talked to them.

"Yes."

Merlin would have wanted to deny it but with all the evidence that Arthur had – from the stories that Robin and his men were telling and the irrefutable proof of the books which Robin and Marianne had told them that they had read, books that told the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable – Leon, Lancelot, Gwaine, Tristan and Elyan and his sister Guinevere, a servant girl who became Arthur's wife. And of course the great magician Merlin, who helped Arthur become the great king that he was. And of Morgana his evil half-sister who tried to kill him.

To say that Arthur and Merlin were shocked was putting it mildly. Arthur stared at his friend in shock, Merlin had lied to him for more than four years and he thought they were friends. Best friends, even. He walked off and Merlin ran after him.

"So all those times, when you said that you had saved my life," Arthur said dully, "you were telling the truth."

"Yes," Merlin replied.

"That's how you knew that Valiant was using magic, how you knew that my father had married a troll," Arthur continued, "how you knew that Morgana had magic and that Agravaine were betraying me."

Merlin nodded, wishing that his friend seemed happier with the revelation.

"And you didn't think to tell me?" Arthur asked.

"How could I?" Merlin asked, "Magic is forbidden in Camelot. You, of all people, know that."

"You really think I would have had you killed?" Arthur asked his friend. They looked at each other and then Arthur walked off again, he needed to be alone to clear his head and try and understand how he could have been so blind not to have noticed that there was something different about Merlin. And that it wasn't his ability to always somehow end up in trouble and to spend a lot of time in the tavern.

000

"If we're in the history books," Arthur told Robin, "then we must be in the future."

"By some miracle," Robin agreed, "you ended up in the future."

"So the question we should be asking is," Arthur said, "How do we get back to Camelot?"

They pondered that in silence and then Will Scarlet said, "Maybe you were brought here for a reason."

"What do you mean?" Arthur asked him.

"You're a great warrior, the greatest King England has ever known," Will said, "and now you're here in Nottingham when the kingdom is under attack. The king is in the Holy lands and Prince John and the likes of the Sheriff want to take over the land. Maybe you're here to save us."

"I don't think so," Arthur replied, "I'm just one man there's nothing I can do here. And besides I have bigger problems, I left Camelot under attack. I have to go back and try and save it."

"You're not one man," Much pointed out, "you have us. Together we can do something. Besides aren't you forgetting something, we have Merlin, which has to count for something."

Arthur turned and looked at his friend who had been silent throughout the whole exchange. "You're the one with all the magic, what do you think?"

"I seem to have lost my magic," Merlin told them. He had tried it ever since he had found himself in the castle in Nottingham to no avail.

"Right," Arthur said, "so we are stuck here."

"In the meantime," Robin pointed out, "you get to spend time with us and you have proved very handy in a fight and you know we have plenty of those on our hands. In fact, I'm surprised that…"

They never got to hear what Robin was surprised about because the boy on the lookout came running into the camp. Gisborne and thirty men were bearing into the forest looking for Robin and Arthur. They picked their weapons and began to run.

"I will distract Gisborne," Marianne told Robin.

"Be careful."

000

They run until they came to a cave under the trees.

"I think we'll make our new camp here," Robin said. The area was well hidden and they set out putting traps around it to ensure that no one would find them without giving them fair warning.

"You'll find a way to go back," Robin told Arthur. "Think about it_, you_ have to go back."

"But how?" Arthur asked him. "How? I don't even know how we got here."

"You have to go back," Robin told him, "otherwise the history of this country changes. If there's no King Arthur the England we know is gone for good and I, for one, cannot let that happen. Don't give up hope my friend."

Arthur smiled at his new friend. Robin was right, he had to hold onto the hope that he would return to his beloved Camelot, and that he would see Guinevere again.

"You will see her again," Robin broke into his thoughts.

"What? Who?"

"Your Guinevere," Robin laughed, "you will see her again."

"How can you be so sure?" Arthur asked.

"When I went to fight with King Richard in the Holy lands," Robin told him, "I was sure that I would return to find Marianne married but here we are many years later and she's still unmarried and what's more she still likes me. So you see my friend, there's always hope."

Arthur nodded.

"You'll get back to Camelot and save your kingdom, you'll see."

000

Thanks for reading and reviewing.


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur and Merlin had been in Nottingham for almost two weeks and at times it seemed to them that they had lived there all their lives.

"We'll never see Camelot again, will we?" Arthur asked his friend. They were on their way back from disturbing food to the needy.

"We will," Merlin, ever the optimist, replied, "you'll see."

"Do you think Morgana has taken over?"

"Unless she killed all the knights," Merlin replied, "otherwise I'm sure they're fighting against her."

"I should never have had Guinevere banished," Arthur said. Merlin knew what was coming next; the young king would become depressed and not talk for hours. Luckily Arthur rarely had time for sulking; outwitting the sheriff and Gisborne and trying to stay alive gave him other things to think about.

000

"That wasn't supposed to happen," Much said ducking as an arrow shot past him, "no one said anything about poisoned arrows."

Robin and his men were standing in the middle of the Sheriff's new strong room. They had heard about it when the men who had commissioned to build it had died from mysterious circumstances leaving only a blind man, whom the sheriff's men had thought dead.

Robin and his men intended to take all the money from the strong room to interfere with Prince John's plans to take over England in the absence of King Richard. Getting into the strong room hadn't been hard, however they had discovered only too late that it had been a trap and that there was no money in the room. The sheriff had removed if for the evening; no doubt he'd been tipped off that Robin intended to raid his strong room that evening.

"What do we do?" Much asked.

The men looked at each other and then Robin said, "we run." Luckily for them the arrows had stopped shooting but they heard something worse.

"Dogs," Will said. "They've let out the dogs." The sound of barking filled the air and they could hear Gisborne's voice in the background urging his men to move faster.

"That was a narrow escape," Alan said, when they were safely out of Nottingham on their way back to the camp. "How did you know about the sheriff's new strong room, anyway?"

Robin didn't reply. Marianne was his spy in the castle and although he knew that he could trust these men - even Arthur and Merlin with his life, he couldn't risk Gisborne and the sheriff finding out about Marianne.

The next day Robin and Marianne met at their agreed place in the market. "You failed yesterday," Marianne told him, furious.

"It was a trap, and there was no money."

"Well, the sheriff is furious, and he's making some changes to the strong room," Marianne told him.

"Really?"

"Apparently he's receiving a visitor, a rich count who'll double or even triple the contents of the strong room," Marianne told Robin.

"When?"

"The count's arriving today, which is why I'm here buying a new dress to distract him, and he's staying only two nights."

"That doesn't give us much time," Robin said.

"You only have tomorrow night," Marianne said, "after that it will be too late."

000

Robin, Much, Arthur, Merlin, John, Alan and Will practiced again and again, making allowances for the poisoned arrows, the shifting floor and also how to get the money out of the room without the guards hearing a thing. They had already bought the meat for the dogs and Merlin had mixed some herbs that would make them fall asleep. The only thing remaining was how to get everyone into the castle unnoticed but Robin and Arthur were working on that.

000

Count Wells stood with Marianne in the shadows. He had followed Marianne out of the game room when she had feigned a headache and now they were hiding behind the curtains in the sheriff's room.

"You had better make sure Marianne plays her part well," the sheriff told Gisborne.

"She knows what's at stake," Gisborne replied, "and we all know how much she loves her father."

"And as for that stupid Count," the sheriff continued, "he has to lose everything."

"The dice is loaded in the favour of the house," Gisborne, "we'll get everything."

After Gisborne and the sheriff left Count Wells wanted to pack up and leave immediately but Marianne was able to convince to stay and help Robin. The next morning the Count convinced the sheriff to allow Marianne to ride out with him unaccompanied and they went and met Robin.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Wells asked Arthur.

"What makes you think that?"

"You have the look of a man out of his time," Wells replied.

Marianne had been able to get Merlin employed as one of the workers in the game room and at his signal the Count would start to lose ensuring that all his money ended up in the strong room where Robin and his men would able to get it from with all the sheriff's money.

The plan went off without a hitch. The Count lost all his money and Robin and his men emptied the entire contents of the strong room. The Count would meet Robin the next morning to get his money on his way back home.

000

Count Wells stood in his room in the castle and looked out at the dark night. He took his pocket watch out of his pocket but he didn't look at it. It had probably been a mistake to come to Nottingham but he had had no choice, not when Arthur and Merlin had ended up here as well.

He hadn't been surprised to see them coping with the situation which is why Arthur was going to be the greatest king the kingdom would ever know. He looked at his pocket watch; they still had a little time but not much.

If Arthur and Merlin didn't get back to Camelot tomorrow then all would be lost.

000

Count Wells thanked Robin and Marianne and gave them his money as a gift to help in the fight against the sheriff and Prince John.

Robin and Marianne went off to a quiet corner to talk; she had a little time before she would be missed. Alan, Will, Much and John carried the money to the camp.

"Do you think everything will ever be alright in England?" Merlin asked.

"Robin will keep fighting until it is," Arthur replied, "or until he dies in the attempt."

"At least today was a good day," Merlin said, laughing, "no one was kidnapped or killed."

"Do you suppose we'll ever go back?"

"I'm sure you will." Merlin and Arthur turned to look at Count Wells whom they hadn't heard walking towards them. "In fact you're going back today."

"Who are you?" Arthur asked him.

"I haven't been exactly truthful with you," Wells told them, "my name is in fact H. G. Wells. It doesn't mean much to you I know, but I'm from the future and I invited the time machine."

"What?"

"A machine that can take you from one time to another," Wells told them. "Anyway there I was in 2011 minding my own business when one of my … students used the machine to get to Camelot. He inadvertently opened a wormhole which brought you here. I didn't discover it immediately, the silly boy tried to cover it up but when I did, I immediately set off to come and find you. You must return today or Morgana will take over Camelot and change everything."

Arthur and Merlin had been staring at the man in shock, he took a small bottle from his pocket and sprayed it into their faces and they both fell to the ground. Wells smiled to himself and looked around, Robin and his men were nowhere to be seen. As he struggled under the weight of Arthur and Merlin he silently agreed that he probably hadn't thought out that part very well.

Finally both young men were in the carriage and Wells calibrated the time machine and they set off for Camelot.

000

"You go ahead," Elyan said to Arthur and Merlin. "I'll keep them busy."

Arthur looked back at Camelot; he couldn't believe he had trusted the wrong person. Again. He had honestly thought that Agravaine was on his side.

"We have to go," Merlin said.

"No." This time Arthur wasn't going to leave Camelot without a fight, besides he had Merlin by his side and that was definitely an advantage.

"What?" Merlin couldn't believe his spell had worn off already. Arthur was in no state to fight; in fact he wasn't even supposed to be in a state to think clearly.

"Merlin, you're the greatest warlock in the land. Surely you're more than a match for Morgana."

H. G. Wells, who was hiding behind a tree nearby, looked at his watch and shook his head. Things weren't supposed to happen like this. Arthur wasn't supposed to know Merlin's secret yet.

"Arthur," Merlin said, laughing nervously. "The wound must be making you delirious."

H. G. Wells stepped out into the open and when Arthur saw him he said, "That's H. G. Wells, he invented the time machine, he knows everything he was with us in Sherwood Forest." Merlin was still in shock over the fact that Arthur seemed to know his secret that he didn't even look at Wells.

"And I think I put you in the wrong time," Wells said. "If you would be so kind." He beckoned to them. When Arthur moved nearer pulling Merlin with him, Wells knocked sprayed the young men in the face again.

He would get it right this time.

000

Arthur woke up and looked at the clothes he was wearing; he looked around and saw Merlin sleeping under a tree. Kicking Merlin, he asked, "what am I wearing Merlin, you'd better have a good explanation for this."

"Shh," Merlin told him, "these people think you're a simple minded fool."

"Who are these people and why would they think me a fool?"

Tristan walked up to Merlin and said, "We're setting off in a few minutes," and then looking at Arthur like he couldn't possibly have understood his words, added, "Explain that to the fool."

000

So many unexplained things happened in the battle for Camelot and once or twice Arthur found himself thinking that maybe the dream had been true, maybe he and Merlin had gone to the future, maybe Merlin had magic but he only had to watch Merlin trip over his feet and knock over things as they cleared the castle after Morgana had escaped to make him shake his head and tell himself that it was only a dream.

000

H. G. Wells closed his pocket watch and straightened his bowtie. All was well in Camelot for now. He debated with himself and then decided that he had time to attend the wedding. After all a few more days won't hurt anyone and he had always wanted to attend Arthur and Guinevere's wedding.

**000\the end/000**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing.**

**The character H. G. Wells is from the series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which I absolutely love.**


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